The Bottom Line on Second Life 2.0
Linden Lab re-conceived its Second Life viewer (finally!) and created a new product. There is a lot of information about it, but here’s the short version:
- Interface Cleanup: The old interface was a disaster. There’s no other way to say it. For new users it was like being threatened with the edge of a broken bottle, daring them to try to figure that nonsense out. This is much better. Well, not perfect, but better than a broken bottle in the face.
- Current Location Easily Accessible: Just like in your web browser, your location in Second Life is now at the top of your screen. Copy/paste it into a document, send it to a friend, or paste locations up there that you want to visit. Now if they could find a way to make them shorter and more memorable…
- Places To Explore: The worst part about entering Second Life for the first time, apart from the interface, has been the complete lack of direction for finding something interesting to do. While some will inevitably whine about the “preferential treatment” these destinations are getting, this was a critical change.
- Improved Avatar Customization: Its still way to complex for new users, but they’ve made it much easier than it was before.
- You can buy a house!: In the real world you can just buy a house and furnish it, and now you can in Second Life too. Thank goodness. Before you had to buy some land, make sure it was big enough for what you needed (which, as a new user, you have no real clue about), then find somewhere that sells houses, and figure out the build tools to deploy it correctly. Forget all that now: just go buy a house. *whew*
- Webpages On Walls: A game-changing feature. Watch YouTube or run other Flash-based applications on your wall, no problem. Even bigger: users can just click the surface to automatically zoom in on it properly. Genius!
I’m usually loathe to give the Linden Lab crew too much credit for development of new features as it all seemingly comes at a glacier’s pace, but this was a huge leap forward for them. New users might actually get through an entire orientation without smashing their keyboards in frustration! Well done guys.
Now don’t stop here; keep it up!
Video Resources
A general overview of the Second Life 2.0 interface.
Web content on walls parts 1 and 2
(called “Shared Media” because they just can’t help but make up new terminology for you to learn… aren’t you grateful… )
You can buy a house. (“Linden Homes”)
The full set of in-depth tutorials covering every little thing in the new interface.
